When you push someone with an anxiety disorder for example, into things that are too big for their anxiety, you only end up reinforcing the fears behind their intrusive thoughts and setting them back in their recovery. Tough love is an expression that was first introduced to the public by author Bill Milliken in his book, Tough Love, published in 1968. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Mental health has been a consistent and prevalent theme in K-dramas these days. Why Tough Love Doesn’t Work Most people would probably not consider going to the extremes that these programs employ. It’s not okay to push someone or make them feel like shit for having a mental illness. Pushing someone with a mental illness too hard can actually send them backwards. Subscribe to the free 7 day anxiety course, Being A Mental Health Blogger Doesn't Mean You Need To Be Perfect, 40 Worst Things To Say To Someone With Depression. ... I’m lucky to have a supportive companion who offers support and love—sometimes the sort of tough love we all need. The clear message being sent is the only way to regain the support and interaction and everything that comes with it is to agree to accept help in the form of drug rehab. People with bipolar have the “tough” bit covered. I know this all too well as I have been pushed more than once over the years, into situations that I have definitely not been ready for which resulted in several breakdowns. Yeah I'm realizing my mistake of going too far with tough love. They fall in love after having to work together on a construction site. ... when it comes to mental health problems, data does suggest a close connection. It is about forcing a loved one with little or no insight into facing their situation. I can’t simply push my mental illness aside to do everything you want me to. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. Your email address will not be published. I'm Kel, a lifestyle and mental health blogger, living in Somerset with my partner and twin boys. Some degree of unconditional acceptance is helpful in any therapeutic process, but it must also be carefully integrated with tough love when it comes to healing from mental illness. Heroin abuse in the United States is reaching epidemic proportions. It isn't used to punish. “Tough love might look like an appropriate response, but it often backfires by further damaging the frayed connections to the people to whom the child is closest.” This last statement resonated very strongly with me. But it is extremely common for friends or loved ones to want to “call out” the person dealing with addiction and point out all the ways that person is hurting themselves and the people around them. Validating them isn’t going to make their mental health worse, it’s just going to make them feel safe and supported. There are ways to deal with that without abandoning your mentally ill child. How To Explain Social Anxiety To Someone Who Doesn’t Have It, 10 Social Anxiety Myths And Why They’re Total Bullshit, When Your Illness Becomes An Inconvenience To Others. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. There is much more to it than that. There is nothing healthy about tough love in the context of mental illness. To love someone with depression, you need to love them wholeheartedly, without conditions. I once went back to therapy after one of my breakdowns and told her how I wasn’t coping, how I’d gotten my first job and stuck it out for a year but my anxiety wasn’t improving, it was actually getting worse. Your mental health is a part of you, and you should not feel pressured to change for others. ... All this stuff about removing stigma from mental illness is well meaning but... very very complicated! 28th September 2019 by Kelly Jean 2 Comments. Remember their mental illness is not who they are as a person, it’s just something they have and didn’t ask for. The above is what I needed to feel better (& I do). Tough love is a response to the non-response of a loved one to recognize the need for treatment and acceptance that they are ill, mentally ill. Filed Under: Anxiety, Depression, Mental Health. According to SAMHSA, between 2007 and 2012, the number of heroin users has doubled from an … Tough love is the act of sternness or unsentimental demeanor toward an addict and their addiction. Assailing a person for symptoms beyond their control isn’t love, it is sadism. I had radiation treatment after work. My therapist told me that what I’d done by getting my first job after years of not being able to leave the house, was “diving into the deep end” which did not work. I’ve never thought of tough love in regard to mental illness before but I guess I could see the application. Tough love is commonly used to try and help addicts become sober. From a deep feeling of affection, to the embodiment of virtues that always protects, trusts, hopes, and … Required fields are marked *. What works in addition to medical treatment, ie, therapy & medication is compassion, support, kind words and most of all love. After finally fighting back for my life and dignity against every abusive act, putting the fear of God in them the way they always did to me, they finally backed off, they finally understood, and true healing began. Less anxiety in 7 days. Posted on October 7, 2017 April 6, 2020 Author Anne Moss Rogers Categories Addiction Tags is tough love the right way to treat an addict, should I use tough love, tough love, tough love and addiction, tough love and mental illness 12 Comments on Is tough love the right thing to do? Less anxiety in 7 days. Don’t blame them or belittle them for their mental health. Treatment can be a long, difficult process and some mental illnesses don’t just go away after treatment, they have to be managed for life. Seriously, just acknowledge them! Your dismissive and sometimes gaslighting attitude towards me does not work on my mental illness. This is amazing! 5th January 2020 by Kelly Jean Leave a Comment. Though love is carried out by either withdrawing completely from the addict or stern, harsh treatment. Sometimes it means giving an ultimatum of going for treatment or … By day I'm a professional photographer and by night I blog about managing anxiety, depression, having a chronic illness and many other things. Your email address will not be published. I know that I am walking a very fine line when I say that there were times that I, as a mentally ill person, needed a healthy dose of tough love from my friends and family. For other people, managing their mental illness may be down to getting the right medication and adjusting it to the right dosage, it may be other therapy treatments that are more complex or it may be situational and will unlikely go anywhere until the situation causing it has changed. The set of behaviors typically identified with “tough love” are usually stigma and denial in the guise of support. I'm Kel, a lifestyle and mental health blogger, living in Somerset with my partner and twin boys. However, once an addict hits rock bottom, tough love is probably too little too late. I’m going to discuss being held accountable while having a mental illness. When she got discharged from the hospital and came home, her mood got really really nasty. They cut into my deep psychological wounds and make me feel like a project that needs “fixing”. Knowing that your tough love doesn’t work for mental illness, here are some ways you can support your loved ones instead: It’s okay to set healthy boundaries. Tough love can help your loved one accept treatment, but addiction is a disease as well, so it does require medical assistance. But the tough love approach is fundamentally antithetical to the reality of addiction and fails to recognize addiction as a brain disorder and psychological symptom. It doesn’t suddenly disappear because you say it’s time to get over it or because it makes you uncomfortable. I'm Kel, a lifestyle and mental health blogger, living in Somerset with my partner and twin boys. The only criteria that seems to matter to them is that the behavior bothers them. It is so refreshing to hear someone else say that I don’t have to make other people feel better when my illness makes them uncomfortable. Related: How To Explain Social Anxiety To Someone Who Doesn’t Have It 10 Social Anxiety Myths And Why They’re Total Bullshit When Your Illness Becomes An Inconvenience To Others. I often feel so much guilt because I’m inconveniencing others with my mental illness. A spokesperson for the NSPCC is quoted as saying: “Smacking is not an effective form of pu… Tough love addiction treatment has long predominated the recovery community, to the detriment of addicts and their families. When it comes to mental illness and any addiction, it's important to remember that tough love is used to bring the problem to the forefront and cause the person to make a choice to heal or not. The study was carried out by researchers from Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, and Arizona State University and was funded by The National Institute for Medical Health. When tough love is practiced, however, mere words from the addict will no longer suffice. It’s okay to admit that you don’t know how to handle this or how to help. Why Tough Love Doesn't Work for Addicts and Alcoholics My mental illness is exactly that, an illness. When talking about a loved one going through a manic episode, I don't think that 'tough love' is going to work. If that’s how it worked, I would have said goodbye to it a long time ago. Subscribe to the free 7 day anxiety course. By day I'm a professional photographer and by night I blog about managing anxiety, depression, having a chronic illness and many other things. Your tough love doesn’t work on my mental illness. In the addiction and rehabilitation community, tough love has become the standard for families to treat their children – by shutting them out, imposing harsh restrictions, and even disowning them when they fail to quit or follow through on rehab. 5th January 2020 by Kelly Jean Leave a Comment. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. Is tough love … But it doesn't work if the person is high on drugs or drunk, or even too out of touch with reality to assess the situation. When a person becomes manic, they begin to lose touch with reality and lack insight and awareness into their thoughts and actions. A young woman living with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to childhood abuse describes why "tough love" doesn't work for trauma survivors. Do some research into the symptoms, so that you can better understand what is typical for them to experience. Why Tough Love Doesn’t Work For Mental Health. There are many complexities to a persons mental illness, including trauma, years of learned habits and chemical imbalances in the brain. And many practitioners of tough love believe it is all right to lambast people living with mood disorders on any grounds whatsoever. Currently you have JavaScript disabled. A loved one gives tough love in hopes that the addict will take responsibility and solve their addiction problem. The Daily Telegraph’s coverage of the study is broadly accurate and it also went to the trouble of including a dissenting view about the merits of smacking. Over 250 self-help support groups and discussion forums for people who need emotional support, help with a mental health, relationship, parenting, or sexual problem, and mental illness support. Kel, ... pop up on his Caller ID. But it doesn't work if the person is high on drugs or drunk, or even too out of touch with reality to assess the situation. When you say “time for tough love”, what you’re really saying is that you’re inconvenienced by my mental illness or that you don’t really believe in its existence. Recognize you might not be the best person to help them. Perhaps it is fear of enabling that causes some people to approach addiction with the tough love method. Acknowledge what they’re going through. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. When it comes to mental illness and any addiction, it's important to remember that tough love is used to bring the problem to the forefront and cause the person to make a choice to heal or not. That means loving them with their illness. In order to offer tough love effectively, you must also offer your loved one some way to call for treatment options, visit treatment programs or … with depression mental illness or any other medical disease like cancer, diabetes, chronic pain, heart disease, AIDS, etc. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. I no longer believe in tough love when it comes to folks who have a serious mental illness, however it doesn’t mean that that parents or siblings have to put up with abusive behavior. Currently you have JavaScript disabled. This is kind of a tough topic to write about. Kelly Jean. Tough love, or, abusive love actually, was what got me there in the first place. Thank you so much for this! What does seem to work is being very firm with boundaries. But, … Ask them how they’d like you to support them and what help if any that they want from you. Conversely, tough love always made me feel even lonelier, more ashamed, and burdensome on everybody in my life. It was Geno's day off from work and he had planned to decompress. It may not be fruitful to say you are on the … Your email address will not be published. A free email course to help you reduce your anxiety. ... mental health treatment does … How I was being sick everyday, I couldn’t stop shaking, sweating, panicking and I didn’t feel safe at any point of the day. Kelly @ MindfullyMad.com, Many people fail to understand the true situation in which those suffering from mental illness are living; they think that it’s something that can be solved quickly and many also choose to walk away. While exposure therapy (facing your fears) is a really good technique for anxiety and I explain how I use this in my book, it isn’t as simple as just going and facing your fears head on. Get yourself educated on what your loved one is going through. Avoid making them feel bad about having a mental illness. The Positive Effects of Love on Mental Health Love has been defined in various ways. Required fields are marked *. A free email course to help you reduce your anxiety. Molly March 29, 2016, 9:16pm #10 Tough love is a hard, but a valuable language to learn. Professional help and understanding is needed to continue supporting those who need us, Your email address will not be published. Facing your fears and using exposure techniques with an anxiety disorder involves taking SMALL achievable steps, while working through all those intrusive thoughts, dropping safety behaviours and doing the same small steps until they are comfortable before moving onto something bigger. It also made me realize that those who have loved ones battling mental illness need encouragement and support as much as we do. This is especially true where a co-occurring mental illness is present. The study was published in the peer-reviewedjournal Parenting: Science and Practice. It’s tough love, but it works, he says. Treatment can be a long, difficult process and some mental illnesses don’t just go away after treatment, they have to be managed for life. Always know that no matter what you struggle with, your mental health does not make you less of a person. I hear the words “you need to snap out of this now” and “you need to just get over it” but these words don’t offer encouragement or strength to me during my journey, they don’t stretch out to me like an arm to help me up from the ground. It isn't used to punish. Just like someone can’t just forget about their broken leg so that they can walk for you. 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